[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 187 (Monday, November 13, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5468-S5470]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Biden Administration

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, shortly after President Biden took 
office, I gave a speech wondering whether this new President Biden's 
tough-on-Russia rhetoric would be matched by his administration's 
actions. I wondered about President Biden because the actions of the 
Obama-Biden administration were dangerously weak.
  We all know that when it comes to Russia, weakness is provocative. It 
encourages aggression. Russians follow the maxim attributed to Lenin:

       You probe with bayonets: If you find mush, you push. If you 
     find steel, you withdraw.

  The same is true when dealing with Iran and China. Only 6 months 
after Russia invaded and occupied portions of the Republic of Georgia, 
then-Vice President Biden went to Munich to deliver a speech calling 
for the United States to hit the ``reset button'' with Russia. When 
Russia invaded, the Republic of Georgia was westernizing and had gone 
out of its way to cement close ties with our country.
  Georgia even sent soldiers to fight and die alongside American 
soldiers, but that support from Georgia was quickly forgotten in order 
to reset relations with Russia. Secretary of State Clinton actually did 
hit the ``reset button'' in an embarrassing, chummy ceremony with 
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
  As part of the Obama-Biden reset, the United States unilaterally 
canceled planned missile defense cooperation with our allies the Czechs 
and the Poles, and the administration did so on the anniversary of the 
Soviet invasion of Poland.

[[Page S5469]]

  All of these actions then sent the exact wrong message to both Russia 
and to our allies. No doubt the Obama-Biden administration thought our 
unilateral show of goodwill would be warmly received and reciprocated 
by Russia.
  Instead, we know that Russia under Putin invaded and occupied 
Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula and chunks of eastern Ukraine. The Obama-
Biden administration responded with angry words but refused to send 
Ukraine defensive weapons of any kind.
  President Obama urged Ukraine not to fight the 2014 Russian invasion. 
The priority was to avoid escalation. The Obama-Biden administration 
backed negotiations and a diplomatic solution.
  Now, we all know Russia has a history of using negotiations to create 
frozen conflicts that it can use then to destabilize and control its 
neighbors. Historically, Russia will snatch a piece of land and then 
demand a ceasefire and negotiations, allowing it to keep the ill-gotten 
gains indefinitely. Meanwhile, Russia builds up its next aggression 
while weakening its target.
  The Obama-Biden reset and subsequent Ukraine policy was a disaster 
for peace and security. In August 2013, the regime of Syrian President 
Assad used chemical weapons. By doing so, it crossed President Biden's 
redline--that famous ``redline'' that he spoke about. When nothing 
happened, then, the world took notice.
  Meanwhile, the Obama-Biden administration sought to strike an Iran 
nuclear deal at all costs, alienating regional partners and emboldening 
the Iranian regime.
  In June of 2019, President Trump repeated a version of President 
Obama's redline mistake. At that time, Iran had shot down a U.S. drone, 
and the U.S. military had prepared a retaliatory strike, as you would 
expect their defense to do. But President Trump stepped in, calling off 
the strike, and, then, you know, he publicly announced that he had done 
so 10 minutes before that attack was supposed to be launched.
  President Trump's aborted retaliation then led to further escalation 
by the Iranian regime, including attacks on U.S. soldiers; that is, 
until President Trump finally took some solid action, making that bold 
decision to restore deterrence by killing General Soleimani, as he was 
plotting further attacks against U.S. forces. Iran responded with a 
token missile barrage, but the dramatic escalation of the conflict with 
Iran, predicted by some, fortunately, never materialized. In fact, Iran 
was deterred.
  Then, the Biden administration came into office and began 
negotiations to resurrect the Iran deal.
  Of course, who can ever forget the disastrous withdrawals from 
Afghanistan? In time, we will learn more about the decisions that lead 
to such enormous loss of American military equipment to the Taliban, 
while leaving many Afghans who worked with our military still under 
Taliban control--and still today.
  Both of these losses sting this very day and influence others to see 
us as weak or somebody who can't be counted on, as far as our friends 
are concerned. But there is another loss that is harder to quantify; 
that is, the loss of the reputation of the United States.
  Like it or not, stacked on top of the other expressions of American 
weakness that I have described, the Afghanistan debacle led to a 
perception that the United States is weak and unwilling to stand behind 
its commitments. After the Afghanistan embarrassment, our allies and 
partners worried that we were no longer reliable. Worse yet, those 
countries that have long sought America's downfall no longer feared us. 
Our enemies were emboldened.
  According to Russian opposition journalist Mikhail Zygar, in his 
recent book, the fall of Kabul was a turning point in Putin's mind. 
Putin became convinced then that he could conquer Kyiv, President 
Zelenskyy would flee the country, and the United States would do 
nothing to stop that takeover of Ukraine.
  Today, we face the consequences of an emboldened Russia and an 
emboldened Iran. And, two, China is increasingly aggressive in the 
South China Sea and the Strait of Taiwan. To be sure, our responses are 
being closely watched by all three of these adversaries: Russia, China, 
and Iran. This is a critical time when sending more messages of 
weakness would be very dangerous.
  Today, some people--even in my own political party--are reverting to 
the Obama-era stance, arguing that we cannot afford the actions 
necessary to deter all three would-be adversaries of our country. I am 
convinced that we must deter further aggression from our enemies. We 
must restore credible deterrence before we reach the point where we 
have to expend much more, both in American blood and American treasure.
  Estonia's Prime Minister is in town this week. Remember that little 
country that was taken over by the Soviet Union in 1940 and, until the 
early 1990s, was still under their control? Now they are a free nation. 
We ought to listen to them of what freedom really means.
  So I recommend to my colleagues to listen to Prime Minister Kallas, 
if you have any chance to do that. She has shown remarkable clarity and 
leadership since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She often points 
out:

       If Putin wins, or if he even has the view that he has won 
     this war, his appetite will only grow.

  Meanwhile, that old impulse to deter ourselves is still evident in 
this present administration when the U.S. National Security Advisor 
says he is worried about starting World War III. That is a way of 
convincing Putin to hang on a little longer.
  We should have learned by now that escalation of aggression happens 
when the United States demonstrates weakness. Telegraphing that we are 
afraid to give Ukraine what it needs to win is deeply counterproductive 
to freedom and, most importantly, to the Ukrainian people, but also 
encouraging Russia because, remember, for Russians, weakness, not 
strength, is provocative.
  I urge Members of both political parties to discard the failed Obama 
policies of weakness toward Russia and give Ukraine what it needs 
today. Reset didn't work, and ignoring Russia's ambitions in that area 
is harmful for peace around the world and, particularly, for national 
security. Our national security is tied, through NATO, with Europe.
  The more advanced weapons that Ukraine can obtain quickly, the faster 
that war will be over. When it comes to quick decisions to send needed 
weapons to Ukraine to defeat Russia, several countries have shown great 
leadership: the United Kingdom, Poland, and the three Baltic countries, 
for example.
  Now, for sure, yes, the United States has provided many advanced 
weapons to Ukraine--the most of any country helping Ukraine--but 
usually only months after they are needed to have the maximum effect 
that these good weapons provide.
  Ukraine didn't get the tanks needed to launch the counteroffensive 
until after the Russians had months to dig in and fortify their 
frontlines.
  After months of dithering, President Biden finally gave permission 
for the Dutch and Danish to send their F-16s to Ukraine, but it will 
still take months to train the pilots.
  The United States military would never launch a ground campaign 
without controlling the skies, but that is what Ukraine has been forced 
to do without the F-16s. After all the public hemming and hawing, 
President Biden finally approved sending a version of the ATACMS 
missiles to Ukraine, but shorter range cluster munitions were the 
variant that was sent, not the most destructive.
  Meanwhile, President Biden is still withholding the long-range 
versions needed to take out the Russian supply lines in the Crimean 
Peninsula. Now, I can only assume this is another example of self-
deterrence that has proven so misguided a policy of the past.
  Ukrainians are making steady progress, but they could be doing it 
faster and at less cost in American dollars and Ukrainian lives if 
President Biden would not be so hesitant, as he is, to take bold 
action.
  The United States has spent roughly $44 billion on military aid to 
Ukraine. That happens to be roughly 5 percent of the U.S. military's 
own budget. Ukraine remains in control of roughly 83 percent of its 
territory, and the U.S. intelligence community believes the war has 
severely degraded Russia's military power and its ability to threaten 
NATO allies. That is a victory not just for Ukraine's independence but 
for our own national security, as it is

[[Page S5470]]

tied to the invoking of article 5 of the NATO alliance.
  The Russian invasion of Ukraine sent a wake-up call to our military 
that we need to increase our capacity to produce munitions. We have 
ramped up production and are already investing in new capacity so we 
will not be caught flatfooted in any future conflict. I am glad to say 
this is already in evidence at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in West 
Burlington in my State. The dedicated workforce in Iowa is cranking out 
155-millimeter howitzer shells and a host of other key munitions. 
Ground was recently broken for $1.2 billion in upgrades to the Iowa 
plant, paid out of the Ukraine funding package passed by the Congress.
  I know people talk like the money Congress allocated was literally 
sent over to Ukraine and every dollar was spent within that country, 
but the reality is that most of the money stayed right here in the 
United States to produce arms and ammo and to build production 
capacity.
  I am proud that the portion of the Ukraine funding sent to Iowa will 
help keep the United States the ``arsenal of democracy'' for years to 
come.
  Ramping up our military production capacity is good news for our U.S. 
military readiness. It is also good news for Taiwan. The closed 
production line for the Stinger air defense system has meant Taiwan's 
orders have gone unfulfilled for years. That Stinger line is now 
reopening.
  I do not believe the United States is incapable of addressing the 
multiple international challenges we face, and I fear the consequences 
if we don't face strongly those challenges.
  The United States believed that it could ignore World War I and World 
War II until those wars became so large that we got dragged into those 
conflicts. Once the United States joined the fight, our participation 
was decisive but at enormous cost in American lives and American 
dollars. We learned our lesson after World War II and took action to 
make sure it wasn't repeated, and it hasn't been repeated. We did that 
by helping form NATO to keep the peace in Europe for now 70 years.
  Putin's Russia is continuing the Russian tradition of imperial 
conquest and will not stop unless they are stopped. All you have to do 
is look at what Putin himself has said. In addresses going back to 2008 
and a couple of times since then, he said that his goal was to 
reestablish the old Soviet Union. I guess he put it in the strongest 
terms when he said that the breakup of the Soviet Union was the 
greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. So you know he is 
going to welcome the support he is getting from Iran, and Iran happens 
to be sending drones to Russia to attack the civilian areas of Ukraine.
  Iran also funds and backs Hamas as it inflicts a reign of terror on 
innocent Israeli citizens. And for all those people who are 
demonstrating around the country that you see on TV over the last 4 
weekends against what is going on in Israel and Gaza, it seems to me it 
ought to be pretty clear that there wouldn't be a single killing going 
on today in that region of the country if Hamas had not invaded Israel. 
That seems to be forgotten by all the people who are demonstrating. I 
know they are peacefully demonstrating for the most part, and that is 
their constitutional right, and I defend that right. But we have Iran 
involved in this as well because it funds and backs Hamas as it 
inflicts a reign of terror on innocent civilians.
  Iran is firing rockets at U.S. soldiers in the region, resulting in 
injuries--I guess if you believe the TV reports, about 48 instances of 
attacks against American soldiers. Thankfully, nobody has been killed 
at this point, but there have been injuries and some of them very 
serious injuries, and we have not responded accordingly, showing 
weakness. Iran respects our weakness and attacks more.
  China is backing Russia diplomatically, economically, and with 
technology that is being used to attack in Ukraine.
  So I hope you see this China-Iran-Russia axis against the interests 
of NATO, against the interests of peace, against the interests of 
liberty and the independence of countries as something we should take 
very seriously.
  China is deterred also from attacking Taiwan and dominating other 
neighbors in Asia largely based on its assessment of America's military 
strength and political will.
  So whether it is Russia, Iran, China, it ought to be a concern for 
all of us. It is just not Russia v. Ukraine. What would China make of 
the United States throwing in the towel again so quickly? It is pretty 
clear from history, we must not find out. We know what Russia is up to. 
We know what China is up to. We know what Iran is up to. We have to 
make sure they don't succeed.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.